History of Bucks County, Pa Volume 3 by William H. Davis
Names and Page # Index

Martin L SNYDER, wholesale dealer in rubber goods, at Fourth and Market streets, Philadelphia, was born at Farmersville, Northampton county, Pennsylvania, July 2, 1850, and is a son of John H. and Anna (GROOVER) SNYDER, both of whom were natives of Bucks county.

Andreas VAN SCHNEIDER (or, as he signed himself in America, Andreas SCHNEIDER), the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in the year 1739, in Zweybrucken, or Deux Ponts, Rhenish Bavaria, and is said to have belonged to the nobility of that cosmopolitan town, but, having taken part as a mere youth in an uprising against the government, was stripped of his nobility and property and forced to flee from the country. He sold himself to the captain of a sailing vessel bound for the port of Philadelphia, where he arrived some time in the year 1759. He bound himself to a merchant in Philadelphia whose name has not been ascertained, by whom it is said he was employed in the capacity of a farmer in the neighborhood of Germantown for some years, and that later his employer sold him sufficient stock and farming implements with which to embark in the farming business for himself, taking his note without security for the same. It is probable that his employers and benefactors were Abel JAMES and John THOMPSON, of Philadelphia, prominent merchants on whose plantation in Richland township, Bucks county, we find Andrew SCHNEIDER in 1775, and five years later they conveyed to him 140 acres thereof, on which he lived and died. He was a member of the first Associated Company of Richland township in 1775, and is said to have rendered active service in the defense of the rights of his adopted country during the Revolution and served as an officer under Washington when he crossed the Delaware to attack the Hessians on that memorable Christmas night. It is related of Mr. SCHNEIDER that he was in such haste to join the army in the time of his country’s urgent need, that he left his team in the field hitched to the plow. After service in the army of five years he settled on his farm in Richland, and devoted his energies to the tilling of the soil, meanwhile rendering such service to the public as the needs of the community in which he lived demanded. In the latter part of the war he served as a collector of militia fines, and, having in his hands at different periods considerable public funds, he kept the money hid in places known only to himself in order to protect his family from the depredations of the DOANE outlaws, who did not hesitate to maltreat and torture the families of tax collectors in order to ascertain the hiding place of the public money. In religion Andreas SCHNEIDER was a member of the Lutheran church. He had received more than the ordinary advantages in the way of education, and took an active interest in the establishment of schools in the community in which he lived. He spoke the French language fluently, and while living in the neighborhood of Germantown was generally referred to as "the Frenchman." He died on his Richland farm about the year 1816. He married in 1765 Margaret JACOBI, whose parents were also early settlers in upper Bucks county, and they were the parents of eleven children, viz.: Frederick, who married a Miss ECKHART and had seven children; Elizabeth, who married Stephen KNIZELEY and had five children; Catharine, who married Isaac BEAN and had five children; Andrew Jr., who married Mary MICKLEY and had five children; Margaret, who married John WEISEL and had ten children; Magdalena, who married Jacob BEAN; Henry, who married a Miss MESSIMER and had one child; George, who married Mary MICKLEY and had ten children; John, who married Elizabeth HINKLE and had eleven children; Mary, who married Philip RUMFIELD and had four children; and Susanna who never married.

John Snyder was the seventh child of Andreas and Margaret (JACOBI) SCHNEIDER, and was born and reared in Richland township, Bucks county. He was a farmer and lived and died in Richland township, his death occurring about August 1, 1844. His wife was Elizabeth HINKLE, daughter of John HINKLE, who owned and occupied a farm adjoining that of Andreas SNYDER, in Richland. The children of John and Elizabeth (HINKLE) SNYDER were as follows: William H., who married Catharine HEIST and died before his father, leaving two children, Charles and William: John H., the father of the subject of this sketch, who married Anna GROOVER: Tobias H., who died unmarried; Lydia, who died young: Sarah, who also died unmarried; Amos H., who married Mary Blank; Andrew H., never married; Caroline, who married George BRONG; Thomas H., who married Sarah ERDMAN; Catharine, who married Samuel CRESSMAN, and Joseph H., who never married.

John H. SNYDER, son of John and Elizabeth (HINKLE) SNYDER), was born in Richland township, May 20, 1816, and died in Philadelphia, September 30, 1875. When a lad he was apprenticed to the shoemaker trade but was obliged to relinquish it on account of ill health. He entered the famous academy of Professor BLECH, at Bethlehem, and fitted himself for teaching school, and taught for twelve years,1839 to 1851, part of the time at Rufe’s school in Durham township, later at Hellertown, Northampton county, where he resided at the time of his marriage, and the last three years, 1848 to 1851, at Farmersville, Northampton county, Pennsylvania. In 1851 he removed with his family to Richlandtown, Bucks county, where he conducted the village hotel until March 21, 1861, when he removed to a farm formerly owned by his wife’s father, John GROOVER, in Durham township. In 1873 the family removed to Philadelphia, where Mr. SNYDER died September 30, 1875. Mrs. SNYDER is still living. Anna (GROOVER) SNYDER, wife of John H. SNYDER, was born in Nockamixon township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania March 29, 1821, and was a daughter of John and Catharine (MILLER) KRUGER, (That being the original spelling of the name). Her grandfather, Nicholas KRUGER, is said to have been born in Germany, and died in Nockamixon township in 1842. His grandfather, Nicholas GROUGER (or KRUGER) was one of the earliest settlers on the Tohickon, in Tinicum township, and died there in 1773, leaving a widow Ulfronica and children Nicholas, Philip, Mary Barbara and Anna Elizabeth, Nicholas KRUGER, first above mentioned, married Catharine WOLFINGER and had five children: Henry, who married Mary TRAUGER; Elizabeth, who married Nicholas YOUNKIN; Margaret, who married a FENNER; John, who married Catharine MILLER; and Nicholas, who married Susan RUFE. John KRUGER and Catharine MILLER were the parents of five children; Anna, the wife of John H. SNYDER, and the mother of the subject of this sketch: William, who died in infancy: Charles, who married Hannah FRANKENFIELD; Sarah, wife of George HARWICK; and Samuel, who died in childhood.

John H SNYDER was a member of the Lutheran church, and in politics was a Democrat. He was a master mason of Philetus Lodge. No. 527, F. & A.M., at the time of his decease. He had five sons, Martin L., John A., and Charles A., who are living, and Robert J. and Marcus F., who died in infancy. Martin L. SNYDER was born in Northampton county, where his father was at that time teaching school, but his parents removing to Richlandtown, Bucks county, when he was less than a year old, his earliest education was acquired in the public schools there; he later attended the Monroe school in Durham township, and finished his education at the Excelsior Norman Institute at Carversville, Solebury township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. At the age of sixteen years he began teaching school and taught in the public schools of Bucks county for three years. At the age of nineteen years he went to Philadelphia and was employed there as a clerk until 1878, when he embarked in business for himself as a wholesale dealer in rubber goods, in which he has since been successfully engaged. In politics he is a Republican, with a decided leaning toward clean politics as exemplified by the Committee of One Hundred and the Municipal League. In 1901 he was the candidate of the Municipal League, endorsed by the Republican party, for common councilman from the thirty-seventh ward of Philadelphia, but failed of election. He is an active member of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Incarnation, Broad and Jefferson streets, and for the past seven years has been a vestryman of that church, and is the present secretary of the Vestry. He is a master Mason of Shekinah Lodge, No. 246, F. and A. M.: past regent of Apollo Senate, No. 6, Order of Sparta, and Great Ephor of the Great Senate of Sparta for the last twelve years, also secretary of the Great Ephori of the Great Senate of Sparta; past master workman of Quaker City Lodge, No. 116, Ancient Order of United Workmen of Pennsylvania, and an ex-super-vising deputy grand master workman of the order in Pennsylvania; and a member of Pennsylvania council, No. 342, Royal Arcanum. Mr. SNYDER was married in Philadelphia, January 28, 1880, by the Rev. Francis L. ROBBINS, D. D. to Eliza Hunter CASSIN, daughter of Isaac Sharpless and Emily (HUNTER) CASSIN, of Philadelphia, and they have been the parents of two sons, the elder of whom died in infancy. Their son, Cassin SNYDER, born February 27, 1885, received his education in the public received his education in the public schools of Philadelphia, graduated from the North East Manual Training School, and until recently was connected with the engineering department of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company in the construction of the subway and bridge work for the depression and elevation of the car tracks on Market street; but is now associated with his father in business.

Isaac S. CASSIN, father of Mrs. SNYDER, was born in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, July 20, 1826, and is of English and Irish lineage, Joseph CASSIN, his great-grandfather having emigrated from Queen’s county, Ireland, in 1725, and settled in Philadelphia. He had among other children sons John and Luke, the former of whom became famous as Commodore John CASSIN during the Revolution, was a warm personal friend of WASHINGTON, who presented him with an oil portrait of himself, which was destroyed by fire in the home of his no less distinguished son, Commodore Stephen CASSIN, at Washington. Commodore Stephen CASSIN commanded the Ticonderoga in McDonough;s famous victory on Lake Champlain in the war of 1812-14, and was awarded a medal by Congress for bravery in that action a replica of which is now in possession of Cassin SNYDER, above mentioned. Luke CASSIN, brother of the first Commodore, was the great-grandfather of Mrs. Snyder. He was born in Philadelphia in 1763, and followed the trade of a silversmith. He married Ann WORRALL, of an old Delaware county family, and had one son, Thomas W. CASSIN, who married Rachel SHARPLESS, daughter of Isaac and Hannah (WRIGHT) SHARPLESS, and had children: John, the distinguished naturalist and ornithologist; Lydia, Luke, Thomas W., Rebecca S.William V., Isaac S., Ann Eliza, and Susanna S.

Isaac S. CASSIN was educated at the famous Friends’school at Westown and under private tutors, and early manifested a talent for mechanics. He served an apprenticeship with Messrs. I. P. Morris & Co., of Philadelphia, and subsequently became, successively, engineer of the Spring Garden Water Works, of Philadelphia Gas Works, Chief Engineer of the Philadelphia Water Works, and chief engineer of the United States Mint in Philadlephia. Relinquishing for a time public office. Mr. CASSIN reorganized the Union Hydraulic Works, and was one of the most eminent water and gas engineers in the country, having built not less than fifty water works in prominent cities throughout the country. His services as an expert in the construction of water works, were in great demand, and he had a distinct and unique reputation in the valuation of water and gas properties. He was a life member of the Franklin Institute, and of the Engineers’ Club, and for more than twenty years prior to his death was a member of the Public Buildings Commission, which had charge of the erection of the city hall of Philadelphia. He was a member of the Society of Friends, at the Race Street Meeting. In Politics he was an uncompromising Democrat, and besides filling numerous public offices was frequently a delegate to state and national conventions. He married, October 10, 1850, Emily HUNTER, daughter of John Morgan HUNTER, of Delaware county, and they were the parents of six children: Thomas; Eliza H. (now Mrs. M.L. SNYDER)’ Edward, John, Emily, and Isaac S. CASSIN.

The maternal ancestors of Mrs. SNYDER were no less distinguished than her paternal ancestors. John HUNTER, the progenitor of the family in America, was a strong churchman, and was in the Protestant army, under William of Orange in the battle of the Boyne, where he commanded a troop of horse and was wounded in the hip. He was a native of Durham, England, and a descendant of the HUNTER family of Madomsley Hall, Gateshead, where many of his ancestors are buried. Upon the accession of James II, he fled to Rathdrum, county Wicklow, Ireland, where he married Margaret ALBIN, who bore him ten children. He came to America in 1722, and a year later settled in Newtown Township, Delaware county, where he died in 1734 at the age of seventy years, and lies buried at old St. David’s, Radnor, of which church he was one of the founders and a member of the first vestry. He was accompanied to America by Anthony WAYNE, the grandfather of Mad Anthony WAYNE, of the Revolution, the former being his superior officer in the battle of the Boyne, and the two families were closely associated. John Morgan HUNTER, the grandfather of Mrs. SNYDER was a descendant in the fifth generation from John HUNTER, the pioneer. His mother’s sister, Elizabeth EDWARDS, married Peter PENN-GASKILL, who claimed descent in the sixth generation from William PENN, the founder. John Morgan HUNTER married Eliza RHODES, by whom he had five children, - Rachel, Hannah, Samuel, Emily, (the mother of Mrs. SNYDER), and Sarah.

Test taken from page 197-200 of:

Davis, William W. H., A.M., History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania [New York-Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1905] Volume III

Transcribed April 2001 by Joan Lollis of IN. as part of the Bucks Co., Pa., Early Family Project, www.rootsweb.com/~pabucks/bucksindex.html